American Legacies Organization, Inc.

This was written by an 83-year-old. The last line says it all.

I’m reading more and dusting less.

I’m sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden.

I’m spending more time with my family and friends and less time working. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure.

How many of us can say we remember the Titanic, two World Wars, Prohibition, hobble skirts and seventeen U.S. Presidents? At the age of 98, Florence Agnes Smith Bailey Mitter is one of the few who can. A true all-American in every sense of the term, Florence Mitter witnessed almost the entire 20th century and grew up while her country did. And now, in the 21st century, we are most fortunate to hear her story.

By Charles J. Jefferson

The Wall

Editors note: To the Left, the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial serves as a testament to the sacrifice of American military personnel during one of this nations least popular war. Since its unveiling in 1982, the work has become a point of reference, inspiring a new generation of American memorials.

BY ZELPHA WILLIAMS-SMITH

The men always ate at the table first. Women and children came last. This is the way it was in my family. Back then, in the 1930s, it sometimes seemed like no one in Alabama ever had enough to eat. My papa owned lots of land in Eclectic and grew wide rows of white cotton, but he barely scratched out a living. I was the 8th child out of ten. My oldest sister was already 24 when I was born. I remember thinking of her as my other mother.

On January 31, 1936, the Green Hornet radio program aired on WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan. Al Hodge played the part of the Green Hornet from 1936 through January of 1943. The program was created by George W. Trendle, the same man associated with the creation of the Lone Ranger radio show.

The relief of returning home was not like anything that I had ever experienced, or have since that time. It was so good to finally be reunited with my family after not seeing them for almost two years. I remember spending much of my spare time conversing with elderly men every evening after work. Many of us would gather after work at Elden Borneman's Store, and listen to the world news on the radio.

Papa and Jim came by as often as they could, but it did not seem like it was very often. Papa did as he had promised, when he came, he would take Haywood and Chester to the General store and buy them both a sack of penny candy. Sometimes he would take them to the Schloss Furnace where he now worked, to pick up his check. He made 3 dollars a week.

Left to right: Grandpa Wilson (Achus), Francis Wilson, Achus Wilson, Jr. and Grandma Wilson in front of the boat they owned and used for carrying wheat up and down the Erie Canal.

By Susan James

The second time I ever flew in an airplane, I jumped out of it. I was a 25-year-old surgical intern when World War II broke out; convinced that there would be more romance in Europe than in the Pacific theater, I volunteered as a battalion surgeon to join parachute regiment 506 of the 101st Airborne Division, also known as the "Screaming Eagles."

"Nobody could ever agree on my birthdate, so I just picked one," my grandmother always told us. In turn-of-the-century Seattle, fires were frequent and all records of her birth were destroyed. She chose June 14, Flag Day, as a tribute to the adopted country of her parents, who had fled Soviet persecution a few short years before.